Don't Get Left Behind - Photography Has Changed
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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2024
- Attention all photographers and aspiring photographers! The photography industry is constantly evolving and it's important to stay updated. In this video, we'll fill you in on the latest changes and trends in commercial photography that you need to know to stay ahead of the game. Don't get left behind, watch now!
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Instagram / scottchoucino
Facebook Group / 18930. .
Tin House Website and WORKSHOPS www.tinhouse-studio.com/
My Commercial Workscottchoucino.com/ 
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And for the jacket questions, it was from here instagram.com/kennedyskeep/
you are rubbish in photography. but not bad as bla bla bla youtuber
The problem with RUclips is that it is massively over saturated with photographers telling us what we should or shouldn’t do.
Depending on what your goals are its quite easy to sift through the drivel.
Out of curiosity. What would you like from a photography channel?
I'm currently a stay at home mom with dreams to open my own photography business. But it's becoming increasingly clear that it really isn't realistic to only do photography. I am, however, very fortunate to have 6.5 years experience as a public defender (criminal defense attorney). So I'm definitely toying with the idea of having two businesses when i go back to work - photography and law. The great thing about being a criminal defense attorney is I will always have work. Lol.
Lol at that last part!! sad but true!
This is the way. keep both gigs
All the best...
My humble advice: whatever you do, dont leave your law career. I'm a professional photographer and filmmaker since 2012. I love making images and that is what keeps me moving. BUT, as a job, as most of us usually think about that word, being a photographer is not a good one. A job should provide you with some kind of calm for your living or, lets say, stability. But, at least in my experience, it is quite the opposite. If you love photography and want to make art, do it, but work as an attorney to earn that peace of mind that economic stability gives you, because an always struggling photographer rarely can focus on art anyway. Best of lucks.
100% focus on 1 business at first. I've seen many people try to start multiple and fail hard, it's A LOT of work running a biz well. Just look at what Scott has to do every monday, you'd have to do that twice for two businesses. Hard to compete with people who are putting 100% of their efforts everyday to improve 1 single thing than trying to run 2 completely different things. I'd recommend getting your attorney biz going, hire out as many people you can to run it for you, same with Photography, Hire a V.A for almost everything except the photography part. Work out a good workflow and slowly give those things to others.
This maybe the most realistic vid on photography as a business…ever…on RUclips. Thanks mate.
Photography has always evolved. The work I did in the 1970s was very different from what my predecessors did 10 or 20 years before, not to mention 50 or 100, and from what my successors did 10, 20 and 30 years later. One big change in my time was a huge shift from b/w to colour, driven by changes in the technology and economics of magazine and brochure printing, which was where commercial photos ended up in those days. Colour went from expensive niche jobs to affordable mainstream, and the need for colour photography exploded as a result. I shot almost none of my work in colour at the start of the decade and more than half at the end, and that called for techniques that were not even invented when it all started. We could not retouch or manipulate colour chromes as we had b/w prints, so we had to learn new tricks on the job and invent new techniques to produce the pictures our clients needed. To be honest, that was half the fun. Good points from Scott on money and happiness, and on diversification. I diversified my way right out of photography, but that's another story.
I‘m struggling at the moment between photo and video… thanks for your advice! ❤
Started in 1990 and all was good until 2008 and all the commercial photography dried up so I pivoted into event photography which has done me well so far, I do all those jobs real photographers don't want to do!(anti social hours) I always have a side hustle for income diversity photobooths, selling on Amazon, building apps. I have managed to avoid video so far but the writing is on the wall and I need to add this to my portfolio. Keep up the great video's you speak my language and thoughts, (went to Tokyo on holiday last month and went camera shopping and didn't buy anything as nothing would make me more money(really wanted the new 10-20mm canon lens) , just did buy a second hand canon m50(really cheap) for 1 of my 7 photobooth as I know this makes me money!
This is probably the worst time I could have chosen to come back to the fold. I worked as a still photographer from 2007 to 2015, starting with newspaper work, and moving to weddings and various other event and portrait shoots. Toward the end of that time period it was just weddings, about 30 of them a year. Then I hung up the still camera and switched to being a commercial DP for a production co. for nearly a decade, ending in 2021. I've been mostly out of the game for over 2 years, network shriveled up, not to mention the film industry just getting killed the last year with strikes and work shortages. And now I find myself rebuilding a website as a photographer and cinematographer and trying to figure out where to even start.
This should be fun!
You got this!!!!!
Spot on! I think the multiple income streams are important. I work in events as well as being a photographer. During Covid we ran virtual events and that kept the lights on, while photography became more about developing my craft.
Now, I know this goes against the commercial photography grain but I think the idea that specializing is the way to success is outdated and although I think that’s where the biggest money still is, I see a rise in multi-genre photographer as a way to earn a living in photography. For example I do about 10-15 weddings a year; I shoot BTS and unit stills for a marketing companies productions about twice a month; I shoot half a dozen events a month from birthdays to corporate conferences; I shoot headshots and press shots for artists and actors a few days a month and I earn an average London wage doing that. Now, it doesn’t afford me Soho House membership or huge saving capacity but it earns me a living and I enjoy the varied challenges. I’d argue there’s more photographers like that then there are specialist single-genre photographers.
You are spot on with this one...
Adapt or die - great content as always :) I do commecial cinematography by trade but am incresingly being asked for a 'hybrid' role and capture stills/portraits etc.... Which is why I am here!
You hit the spot again, every business needs to adapt and change just to stand still. I had a long consulting career, at the end I couldn’t have sold the services I first provided.
Thanks
Yes you are 100% correct with everything you are saying here !
Diversify is so important! I did exactly that and I am enjoying the variety 😊
Solid down to earth advise.
I’m happy that I didn’t go the choose the professional photographer path when I was ~20 years old, it was for >30 years ago. Then the cut down at the newspapers started and I was thinking, it’s safer to be a hobbyist photographer.
If I’m looking in to the future, the AI will carve in to the photo/ video industry more and more. I’m assuming that the product- fashion- film- photography/ video will be mostly gone in 5-10 years.
The only thing as I see it now that will survive is the event video/ photography. I think still people want to have a memory of their marriage in the foreseeable future.
Majority of marriages last about 3-5 months.
@@arricammarques1955 Great opportunities for repeat business ;)
I am a photographer, it is a profession, i went school for that, i was assisting for years and practice for decades to call myself one. I create photographs and my clients are using them as content. Content creators for me are the ones who making content for themselves/sm platforms even if it is sponsored. And yes, it is a dirty word, like selfie! 😅
Truth! The first step to recovery is to know where you are relative to the changing market dynamics. on target.
Spot on! I started a side business doing social media management / creation and Google Ad Management and it's really paid off. I even got some of my photography clients on board with my new business. The photo jobs are still there, but yes, at my level I'm seeing some drop off, price pushback and usage that is basically anything goes. Never thought I would see this, but it is what it is...I personally don't think it will ever go back to anything close to what it was...You just have to evolve!
Wow, what a joyful note that was left on, 🙂. But, why I love the channel, let's not sugarcoat it. Lots will disappear this year, and next. A great wake-up call as always.
I was a photog at a daily in the states for 35 years. Because of where I live I did all sorts of small commercial projects as side jobs. Now that I’m retired, the side jobs still keep coming. I never could have lived on my commercial work unless I moved to New York.
Great video we must embrace change. There are fewer rules. However there really are more opportunities
I think this is great advice for any kind of freelance work. Diversification and being able to do a wide variety of different types of work (even if they're not your favorite things to do) helps mitigate risk when certain types of work just aren't there. The same is true in software engineering (my day job), where being "full stack" - knowing how both front and back-end systems work - is considered more and more desirable. There aren't enough hours in the day to have depth of knowledge in every topic, but in some situations breadth is more important.
Spot on. And we need to embrace and adapt to the AI revolution.
Ai in art has the ability of a photo copier,all overblown and nothing more than a pastiche of people’s ideas.love this show don’t stop.
Watching from Bangladesh. Agreed 100%.
Well said, I was a Getty curator and we were told this back in the naughties.
I left my freelance career to take an in house photography position for a company that had been a client I’d worked for since I was an assistant. This video rings very true to my experience as this company was less concerned about the depth if my knowledge in product photography (what I have been assisting and shooting in for years) and more concerned with me knowing more or less how we can achieve desired results in everything from customer training videos to product shots for store displays. My diverse experience across traditional video and studio photography sets combined with my personal work in rock climbing and caving photography is what put me at the head of the pack when it came time for them to interview candidates. I love that I get to produce work across many mediums/ subject matters and work in a team of really talented people who love to share their knowledge
I agree with you I primarily do portraits and wedding stills I started to do real-estate and I started learning video doing short clips doing video for my real-estate work and I am currently training in doing wedding drone video and I am a licensed to fly drones as well I also have a second profession and that's low voltage electrician installing video camera systems in residential and commercial buildings as well as fire alarm systems I also build custom desktop computers as well so mabye three professions lol
Totally.
Even on the amateur side, everyone is moving to video.
Where I am at, on cosplay portraiture, and even if the world capital of cosplay is still mostly photo-based, a lot of the content creators worldwide are doing shorts and tiktoks as well as shooting stills.
You nailed it on the head with being labeled a content creator. Ive been with an agency for the past 8 years and just made the jump to my own full time Photo/Video business while being repped by the agency i was with and Ive been lucky to get a good insight on trends and whats here to stay and whats coming in the future. Youre right. You gotta keep up with emerging trends and even though I hated it at first, short form is here to stay and the best move I found is to beat clients to that punch that video elements is apart of my packages. Really does it for em.
Idk why but the color and appearance of this video look so good! Your other videos are good too but this one seems different from the other videos. Maybe more pop? Were you using a different camera for this one? Or just trying out a different edit in post?
In weddings, it's the year the industry is struggling as human relationships and people's attitude towards marriage has changed.
Yeah, majority prefer to invest in property.
Spot on with your comments! 25 years ago I gave a ( business practice) lecture to 3rd (final year) photography students at a University and told them the chances of making a living and having a ‘normal’ life, such as getting a house, running a car, having kids etc. and only relying on a photographic business for income was absolutely nil.
I'm glad that I'm now retired and don't have to adapt to this particular circus.
I enjoy your videos. The thing that is good about your channel is you are a working professional. The personalities don't work. They just wax poetic. The words I live by are "evolve or die." When I direct a video or a TV commercial I shoot stills between takes because clients expect it. Seems like to survive these days you have to "do more with less." Agree with you on diversification. You need multiple offerings. My best return on investment is education. I studied with some great teachers: Onne van der Wal, Peter Hurley, Joe McNally, Peter Coulson, Joel Grimes. Some were in person. Others were web based. But they all gave me something that is far more valuable than the latest magical lens. The other thing I really believe is if you want to make a living as a creative person you have to work your ass off. I think the era of the bushido artist is over. None of my clients want to pay for people who talk. They want to pay for people who make things. Hope you have a great year.
Currently so busy, the chances of starting a you tube channel are nil owing to lack of time. The idea is theoretically good though. Agree about video.
I consider myself so lucky, I don't rely on photography for my income.
We're all feeling the added pressure, the current financial uncertainty is creating on an international level.
My own job has completely changed over the past 12 months - in part because of the crisis.
Things are getting harder all over.
At least I have photography for some shutter therapy.
And, I have a few small success stories to keep up spirits up like a new music video here on RUclips with one of my photos as the thumbnail. A very tiny thing, but that thumbnail has been seen and clicked on thousands of times already.
the video quality on this one makes me feel like i have 20/20 vision again. what a huge step up. what is doing it really?
So sad but true 2024 the yr just to get though .
Change is the constant, so is the unrealistic desire for things to "get back to normal". You're right that there are changes, but that should come as no surprise to anyone. Will some photographers go out of business? Sure, but that happens all the time in every industry. Will new photographers start up and grow? Again, yes, absolutely. An important point you make, and it's easy to get it lost in the noise, is that CLIENT needs, desires, and expectations are also changing, and those photographers who fail to see, listen to, or anticipate those changes will find themselves out of step with their clients...and that's where the loss of business/revenue will stem.
Photography imitating life. The middle class is always the first to be screwed over
Content creator isn't a dirty word; influencer is though. I retch every time have to say it.
Never been busier so far this year
Nice work Wayne! 👍
@@mrbrown3026 cheers
Agreed, never put all of your chickens in one basket.
For me, the new studio is designed to be flexible and rentable. 2nd string is high quality print. Photography would be nice, but getting woemrk is HARD.
Still shoot what I want., when I want. Not influenced or pressured by trends, or advice. Pretty happy doing it all. Not sure how that leaves me behind... Must be a commercial thing.
I shoot on Sony A9 and would like to shoot video but am not quite sure where to start with editing it - any tips please on which software programme to use?
Davinci resolve is the way forward
Regarding video and still requirements, would you say shooting with flash is dead? Say majority of clients were asking for gifs with their stills , would you chose to shoot continuous light for the entire shoot ?
We still have to use flash for stills for technical reasons
Photography is always changing. It is always subject to fads, changing tastes, technologies, budgets, etc. That what makes it such a shitty business to be in: You can never relax, never plan for your future, and never feel secure. It's a horrible business to be in - sort of like actors and musicians, where only the few are making the big bucks, whereas the rest are scrounging for scraps by playing at weddings and doing community theater. There are much better and easier ways to make a living.
You are on target. Especially usage and fees. Part of it is, I think supply and demand. Digital has allowed lots of great talent to emerge because the expensive barrier to entry (which was what film was back in the day) has essentially been removed. The other aspect I think is that imagery is so disposable now. You shoot something and then in a month the client will want something new for social media. I shoot a few big jobs a year. My last big job was for a credit card company (that was partnering with Apple). The approval process took so long on this job. Shot in August, final delivery in December that part of the imagery I shot they haven't even asked for because newer product is in the pipeline. Now, this same credit card company wants me to become a "preferred vendor" --I guess to sideline the advertising agency expenses--and they wanted a rate card. I have never been asked for a rate card in the 24 years I've been shooting. And like you mentioned we are diversified. We rent out the studio when I'm not shooting (--had the same biz model in NYC for 14 years.) Just last week we had back a photographer who had to shoot two sets at the same time (and for a large liquor company) and the last time she was here at our studio she also had to shoot two sets for a different client. I'm bidding on a still life job with a ton of product shots and this client too asked if I can shoot two sets. And budgets are tighter and tighter. I was up to shoot this Wed/Thur/Fri at a studio run by an advertising agency that I work at regularly. The agency cancelled my hold. I found out from a friend who works there full time that they went with someone whose day rate was $200 less than mine. The client for the agency just looks at the numbers and less so about the potential imagery produced. The world of shooting is in such flux at the moment it is a bit mind boggling. But always good to see other photographers being busy...!
I completely agree with you. I’ve been a photographer for 18 years and these last few years changed everything.
No major surprises here. I've changed to content creator a few years back because it's no longer just stills. Yes, stills are the main game still however motion via GIF's or short films is where social media has been pushing the market for quite a while now. To be seen on social it needs a motion element. Algorithms subdue stills but they're still needed to sell. Smart to diversify income streams but I wouldn't build a studio, so many around in London.
Meanwhile, us prosumer hobby photographers who didn't put any income eggs in this basket are still very much enjoying our work. Wildlife photography doesn't have any money in it, but people of all ages love it, and there will never not be desire for it.
You changed your video camera or processed the video differently?
No I rendered out in the wrong colour profile and didn’t have time on the machine to do a re render until the weekend sadly. Usual grades will resume soon
@@TinHouseStudioUK Stick with the new profile. I like the look 😁
Agree (and not sure why) the term 'content creator' is looked down on. Maybe cos it's associated with influencer work... and "it's not real photography"?
Unrelated- am I imagining or have you changed the grading on your videos?
I think that's exactly it. The "influencer" culture and there is a lot of bad content out there. The takeway is that it's somehow relatable content that keeps viewers feeding from it.
i am now a cuntent creator yay!
The previous bad term the old guys hated was "Creative Professional". So I'm not surprised there's pushback against "Content Creator". Of course, someone who works as an "Influencer" could call themselves that. I think the issue is that it doesn't scream "quality". Oh well.
Storyboards were stills for ideas, and not super different in function for a stills campaign, or for motion. If one can frame a good still, having a little movement shouldn't be too much of a stretch. I can see it getting tougher for assistants, because they will need a wider skills set.
AI can be a threat by driving more work "in-house", and cutting the volume of contracts. The big agencies still seem like they're chasing profits, and cutting people. That makes it tougher for someone outside an ad agency getting in on a project. I'm not sure when it ends, because it seems like 2010 again in advertizing.
What's your opinion on companies starting to use AI to generate their content in the future?
As a visual artist (started in painting, drawing, a bit of photography at uni) now I have diversified into being a content creator. However, the writing was on the walls years ago, just did not listen.
"content creators" - yes we are. But there is a difference between creating content as a marketing strategy, and making content as an income source.
Interested in the halfway house. You said people left behind when digital came, and skint people shooting LF trannies. Do you know people who did stick with film (b/w or alternatives) generally smaller format, that aren't skint? Thinking of doing this myself with a view of being niche and presuming (?) I could attach a premium price because of it, or do you need a 'name for yourself' before any chance of that happening? Sorry for the complicated question and not being aimed at your personal scope of commercial photography. Chip in anybody with thoughts on the matter.
I have to assume you're talking about shooting people. Because if you're trying to have a career shooting still life on large format the doors over there...
It will work if you build a "name", have a rep, and won't hurt to have an address in 10020 or 90210 in the states. This doesn't work on the low end & isn't very sustainable in the middle as turn around times from brief to deliverable are short & getting shorter. On the high end you'll see some clients who'll swap your DIT budget (1500-2500) for film & processing. You'll see ~2 very high profile jobs a year making ads targeted at execs & investors that show up on wall prints next to airport lounges & in hyper targeted digital ads. You'll spend the rest of your time cooking up personal projects that speak to the clients you're chasing. But, your competition for those jobs are shooters like Dan Winters & Art Streiber. So, be ready to get f***in GOOD.
Many of us are caught up in technique as a differentiator in our storytelling. That ain't it. The clients I described above (I've been assistant on a couple of these shoots) give 0 Fs about what camera system you use, film or digital etc... They want to see your results. How do you approach storytelling? Mood? How does your approach to communication make an audience feel? How do you behave under pressure? How quickly are you able to pivot when something interesting happens?
YOUR CAMERA DOESN'T MATTER (beyond resolution). Your ability to communicate is paramount.
@@kenrhem Ok thanks. I'm heading for the door 😕 But it's ok.
Freedom is expensive, money is rather cheap.
As someone working in video, hearing photographer day rates always blows my mind. £2k/day is considered low end? Wow. Wow.
2024 is going to bite hard. The expectation was that the film & TV industry would pick up. Nope. Its got much worse. We are the ressession-sensitive canary in the mine that is the UK economy.
200-500 euro in russia one day
If you want to earn a living and pay your bills with photography, you have to move with the times. And the saying goes, "whoever said money can't buy happiness, didn't know where to shop".
Move with the times.. do video… all good and nice but what will you do if the customer wants an all in one service for 250€? Thats the reality of the situation. They want it all now but they refuse to pay real money.
@@castielvargastv7931 Easy, don't work for less.
This is all painfully obvious for anyone who gives even the minimalist effort to pay attention to what’s trending on social media. And I’m pretty sure the saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Is good to practice in any aspect of life….. especially one that is providing service for money. You have your niche specialty style and then you have your categories of growth and interest. I think any photographer that says “I’m satisfied only taking pictures of people.” Or whatever it may be hasn’t completely fallen in love with the art. There’s absolutely no reason to box yourself and limit the experience you have with your camera. I do like the idea of this topic for conversation though.
Reality…Reality…Reality
"If you want to make money from photography... sell your camera!"
Haha its true for most of us
I would love to be a full time photographer but it seems almost impossible. People dont want to pay for fotos and businisses dont care about unknown one man bands. All successful photographers i know started when the times where good. All photographers i know who started in the past five years starve or do it as a hobby as there is no market for most of them.
I diversify my photo technology, mostly medium format film, some digital, and I refuse to go with Camera-less AI image generation.
I have dabbled asking an AI for a selfie photo of me with the exact query of "Provide a selfie photo of me" and it could not pull it off. It should have known "me" refers to myself and it should have known what I look like, AIs are suppose to know everything, they obviously don't and can't
How is it supposed to know what you look like?
New clothes Scott??
Yeah my partner made me a new jacket last week. First outing
Bill Cunnigham, inspired?
photography is mostly dead. Do it for a hobby and the joy of the art and it lives on forever.
I still don't understand what the hell "usage" is, why we charge for it, and how we even justify "usage" to clients. Also I'd love a more detailed video on what test shoots are. Your channel has one 2m one, but you mention it all the time and have no idea what you mean by it. And for some of us, getting paid two grand a day is all we need so when you call it "small" and brush it off, just know speaking about those jobs and niches is worth taking more time.
2000k a day.......point me in that direction 😂 id love that a day. people strugle paying me 500 a day. perhaps im crap, i dont know?
The real question is will A.I. put us all out of business in the next five to ten years? Only time will tell.....
Sounds like an office job ngl
Hey Scott.. this is NOT criticism towards you because I love your work, videos and also your personality/attitude, however is not AI a major threat to exactly the type of photograpy you have in your portfolio? Why would anyone pay you 10000s of ££££ waiting for days and having to plan + organize.... when we can get similar results by spending 30 min in the sofa playing with AI solutions and get similar images in high resolution and pay almost nothing?
Resolution, resolution, resolution... AI images are currently stuck at around 8 megapixels. Which is still perfectly fine for most of the web. But if you have to make a 10 foot print that a person can walk up to... you're still going to want a few more pixels.
I'm assuming that if what you said is true, the limiting factor is just what systems like mid journey are allowing users to have. And if that's true, then it's just a matter of charging people more money to have more server time and voila- bigger images@@kenrhem
@@kenrhemlook up magnific ai
Great question. I’ll answer it in my next QandA
This year is going to be quite something.
This capitalism thing is going bye bye.
How is capitalism going “bye bye”
@memcrew1 probably something to do with the fact China will take decades to defeat. Remember victory gardens? They're coming back.
sadly too soon it will be one guy/gal with a phone
folks have been saying that since I started in this industry and we don't seem much close to it.
@@TinHouseStudioUK
happening all of the time now in NYC
race to the bottom
'Were on a road to nowhere, come take that ride' David Bryun. .
you will be replaced with 3d animation/motion design